Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

The chastisements, moreover, which God inflicted on the covenant people through the temporary ascendency of their enemies, and in other ways, gave in like manner indications of a final triumph of the cause of truth and righteousness. However great their severity, they were always so ordered that God's people were never destroyed, but always purified by their power, and thus the way was prepared for their future enlargement. This purifying tendency the divinely illumined eye of the Hebrew prophet clearly discerned. What wonder, then, that he should have constantly connected with present or impending judgments glorious promises respecting the future. The destruction of Sennacherib's army by the destroying angel, and afterwards of Jerusalem itself by the Chaldean armies—the former event so joyous in its outward form, the latter so sad—these were both alike to the prophet's vision parts of the preparation through which God was carrying his people for the future glory and blessedness of the latter days. He accordingly connected both with bright visions of the future, without pausing to notice the intervening centuries, respecting the duration of which he had no commission to speak.

(4.) The end itself towards which the plan of redemption tends is the chief object of interest in prophetic representation. To nourish the faith and hope of the church, to invigorate her in her present struggles by the assurance of final victory—this, and not the gratification of a prurient curiosity respecting the exact dates of "times and seasons," is the main design of prophecy. That it has other subordinate ends need not be denied. It challenges for itself the attribute of omniscience, and its fulfilment is, to those who live after it, a proof of the validity of its claim. But to become absorbed in calculations beforehand respecting its dates is to elevate the subordinate and circumstantial in prophecy to the place of the essential. The bright end of the present conflict with the powers of darkness is what prophetic vision is continually presenting for our encouragement. To those who love God, this is the point of chief interest; and accordingly the prophets make it, not the exact number of years that is to elapse before the final consummation with the details of their history, the prominent point. Some great crises in the church's history are indicated so clearly that they who can discern "the signs of the times" may understand beforehand that they are near. The general expectation of the Messiah's advent at the time when he actually appeared had its foundation in a sober comparison of the prophecies with the existing condition of the covenant people. The present universal belief among Christians that the time for the final overthrow of the triple league between Satan, wicked kings, and wicked priests for the suppression of the gospel is at hand rests, we doubt not, on the same solid ground. But farther than this we cannot go. We cannot say that it shall be in such a year of the present century, or even in the century, in harmony with the true spirit of prophecy. It is enough for us to know that God "will hasten it in his time"—that the victory is certain, and that every believer from Abel to the trump of the archangel shall have his share in it.

III. THE QUESTION OF DOUBLE SENSE.

7. The so-called double sense of Scripture, especially of prophecy, concerning which there has been so much discussion among biblical writers, must be distinguished from the double sense of pure allegory, which all admit. In allegory, the first or literal meaning is only a cover for the higher spiritual sense, which alone is of importance. That we may have a true example of double sense, the obvious literal meaning must have its own proper significance, irrespective of the higher sense belonging to it, and this higher sense must be intended by the Spirit of inspiration. The question now to be considered is: Do such examples occur in Scripture, by whatever term we may choose to designate them?

To avoid logomachy, arising from the use of the same phrase in different senses, we prefer the expression literal and typical sense.

8. If, as has been shown above (chap. 37, No. 4), examples of historic types are found in the Old Testament, these contain a twofold sense. The priesthood of Melchizedek and the transactions between him and Abraham were true historic realities, having their own proper office and meaning. Yet the word of inspiration teaches us that the circumstances connected with Melchizedek's priesthood and his meeting with Abraham were intended by God to shadow forth the higher priesthood of Melchizedek's great Antitype. He brought forth bread and wine, the very symbols that should afterwards represent Christ crucified as our spiritual food and drink, blessed him that had the promises, and received at his hand tithes of all (Gen. 14:18-20), thus exercising the prerogatives of one higher than Abraham, and consequently higher than all his posterity. Heb. 7:4-10. In the intention of the Holy Ghost, the higher typical meaning lay in this transaction from the beginning, but it was not revealed to the apprehension of believers till the Christian dispensation had begun. So also the rest of the covenant people in the land of Canaan is represented in the New Testament as typical of the true heavenly rest. Heb. 4:7-11. Other examples might be adduced, but these will serve as an illustration of the principle now under consideration.

9. The most striking examples of a literal covering a typical meaning are furnished by the so-called Messianic psalms, a part of which describe the victories and universal dominion of a mighty King whom Jehovah himself establishes on Zion to reign there for ever (Psalms 2, 45, 72, 110, etc.); another part, the deep afflictions of a mighty Sufferer and his subsequent deliverance, which has for its result the conversion of all nations to the service of Jehovah. Psalms 22, 40, 69, 109, etc. That such psalms as the second and seventy-second, the twenty-second, fortieth, and sixty-ninth (not to mention others), have a true reference to Christ's person and work, cannot be denied without imputing either error or fraud to the writers of the New Testament. Nay more, our Lord himself said, after his resurrection: "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:44); whence we learn that it was our Lord's custom to refer to the psalms as containing prophecies of himself. If the psalms, when legitimately interpreted, contain no such prophecies, then, when the writers of the New Testament quoted them as referring to Christ, they either believed that they were making a true application of them according to the mind of the Holy Spirit, or they simply accommodated themselves to what they knew to be the groundless prejudices of the age. Upon the former supposition they were in error; upon the latter, they were guilty of fraud. Such is the dishonor which the modern principles of rationalism put upon the word of God. In the interpretation of these psalms, then, we must assume as a fundamental truth that they contain a true reference to Christ. The only question is, whether they contain a lower reference also.

(1.) One class of interpreters understand these psalms simply of Christ; that is, they assume that the writer speaks wholly in the name of Christ, without reference to himself or any merely human personage. There are psalms—the hundred and tenth, for example—that may be very well explained in this way. The opening words of that psalm—"The Lord said unto my lord"—seem to exclude David as the subject, and it is difficult to see in what sense David could speak of himself as made by a divine oath "a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" (ver. 4). But in the attempt to carry this principle consistently through all the Messianic psalms, one meets with serious difficulties. They contain, at least some of them, historic allusions of a character so marked and circumstantial that it is hard to believe that the writer had not in view his own personal situation. In some of them, moreover, the writer makes confession to God of his sins. Psa. 40:12; 69:5.

They who apply these psalms exclusively to Christ assume that these confessions of sin are made in a vicarious way, the Messiah assuming the character of a sinner because "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all." Isa. 53:6. But the form of these confessions forbids such an interpretation. When the psalmist says: "Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me;" "O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee," we cannot understand such language of any thing else than personal sinfulness. It is true that the Messiah bore our iniquities, and that God "made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin;" but the Saviour nowhere speaks or can speak of "mine iniquities," "my foolishness," and "my sins."

(2.) According to another class of interpreters, the subject of these psalms, particularly of those which describe the Messiah as a sufferer, is an ideal personage, namely, the congregation of the righteous considered not separately from Christ, but in Christ their head; or, which amounts to the same thing, Christ considered, not in his simple personality apart from the church, but Christ with his body the church. The contents of these psalms are then applied, according to their nature, to Christ alone, to believers alone who are his members, or to Christ in the fullest sense and believers in a subordinate sense. Much might be said in favor of this view; yet it labors under the difficulty already indicated, that one cannot well read the psalms in question, with their marked historic allusions, without the conviction that the author had in view—not indirectly, but immediately—his own personal situation.